


Drink your Value; Eating it will count as Gluttony in Hell

by chaoticbeing



Series: Everything's the Same, except a Rat got in [2]
Category: Baby Driver (2017)
Genre: Alcohol, Drinking, Gen, am i posting it anyway as one of the soul providers for this fandom? yes, doc majored in english at one point and you can't change my mind, is anyone going to read this? probably not, look it's either me or make your own work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 09:20:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18385547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticbeing/pseuds/chaoticbeing
Summary: Rat's working for the crew now.Doc doesn't know how to feel about this, and as who he is, he ends up writing about it.





	Drink your Value; Eating it will count as Gluttony in Hell

    Doc was not a man to drink to get drunk. At his age, there was very little to enjoy about forcing his body to shut down due to something under his control. With working daily as well, he couldn’t afford to be out of commission the morning after.

    Doc drank to relax, and only enough to relax.Perhaps saying he also did so for ‘coping’ was true and false. He wasn’t one to admit he needed to cope for anything.

    But tonight?

    Tonight, he needed to cope.

    He thought the new recruit was going to be a pain in the ass. He thought that he’d just have to learn to deal with the younger man, never get more than base level personal. Doc was fine with learning his name, his birthplace, his education career, his parents’ source of living; but he wasn’t fine with getting to know the new kid personally. He didn’t care to hear the saga of backstory from anyone he worked with unless it affected their job. He didn’t want to know about the interests of the person, and would never push to do so.

    Perhaps hiring him was a mistake, Doc thought into his bourbon. He should’ve just killed him and had the crew raid his home to get anything valuable.

    No, not a home, an apartment. The kid lived in an apartment, by himself.

    But the kid had balls to come in, get on his knees, and bargain for his life like a white mother at a yard sale. Enough balls that stirred something in Doc that he had managed to push down for years; almost decades.

    That was what he was drowning out with his bourbon.

    Enough with that, enough thinking about the kid. What did he name himself again? The snarky tone, the smirk on his face?

    Rat.

    He called himself ‘Rat’, but he looked noth-

    Alright, Alright, enough with that.

    Refilling his small glass, Doc got up and walked along the marble countertop to his pile of notebooks and pens. He had to plan for something, and even with the soft buzz in his system, he needed to get work done. That was the only sober task that could distract him. It was either this or continuing to drink. 

    With his morals, he had to choose the former. He pulled out one of his notebooks, pressed with clear paper, and one of his pens. Neither of these times were dollar store by any means, needing to be held with caution. Each piece of paper cost more than most notebooks.

    Doc finished off his shot with a gulp. He let the glass hover in his hand as he looked down at the blank page he opened to.

    What was he going to write about? Was he sober enough to compose a symphony of plans?

    Perhaps he had to be in order to properly distract himself.

    He switches the glass for a pen to be held in the air. It was as if he was bracing himself for impact at any moment, for inspiration to slam into him. His mind was whirling.

**_David,_ **

    He wrote first.

    Then he paused, looking at the fancy lettering on the fancy paper with the fancy ink- he wasn't normally a letter writer. He hadn’t written something deserving of this quality grade of supplies in years. Decades.

**_David._ **

    He wrote again, no comma. Stating the name, as stern as he kept his tone normally.

**_Or as you call yourself, Rat._ **

    Why was he writing this? It felt like his hands were moving on their own, the only warning Doc received was the split second of his mind reciting what was due to go on paper.

**_Why Rat, of all things? A spiteful ploy of the insult I dubbed you? A need to match your job description? What an ugly name, David. An ugly, ugly name._ **

    Doc knew four names that Rat had, more than most people he knew.  In his current state, he couldn’t remember one of them, but it felt unimportant.

**_Carter is an improvement, of course, but that was a past name of yours. You’ve since moved on to bigger and better things: David._ **

**_Do you know the origin of the name David?_ **

    At another time, Doc would know the origin of the name David. It was one of those facts he picked up over the years studying literature in college, noting the importance of a simple name to define a whole character. Odysseus meant hate.Roger meant famous spear. How could he not recall the what the name David meant?

    In frustration, he crossed out the question. A quick, sharp stab of ink; a disadvantage of writing with his pen. Every thought he wrote on paper had to be kept there.

~~**_Do you know the origin of the name David?_ ** ~~ **_Now, you go by Rat. Nothing about you besides your ambitions show you as a pest. Your smile glows, and I have yet to hear you laugh in a way that would “light up the room”._ **

    Dammit, no. A compliment like that would be better from a woman being courted, not by a new boss.

    Doc crossed it out, and additionally scribbled through it. It was unprofessional, more so than the rest of whatever pooled onto the paper.

**_~~Y̷o̷u̷r̷ ̷s̷m̷i̷l̷e̷ ̷g̷l̷o̷w̷s̷,̷ ̷a̷n̷d̷ ̷I̷ ̷h̷a̷v̷e̷ ̷y̷e̷t̷ ̷t̷o̷ ̷h̷e̷a̷r̷ ̷y̷o̷u̷ ̷l̷a̷u̷g̷h̷ ̷i̷n̷ ̷a̷ ̷w̷a̷y̷ ̷t̷h̷a̷t̷ ̷w̷o̷u̷l̷d̷ ̷“̷l̷i̷g̷h̷t̷ ̷u̷p̷ ̷t̷h̷e̷ ̷r̷o̷o̷m̷”̷.̷~~ _ ** **_Baby’s name suits him, my name suits me, but your name feels of a parody, a satire._ **

**_I supposed that is your goal. You throw those around you off their rhythm with a few words. What a talent you have._ **

    The phone rings after he sets the period. It’s late, and it’s the home phone. The chances of it being someone Doc cared about was unlikely. Sure, it could be Susanne, but his sister knew better than to call the landline. She must’ve, anyway.

    He finds himself in a sorts of daze listening to the phone ring out. He kept still as it finished, blinking out of his trance. His attention goes back to what he was working on and-

    Oh God.

    No, no, no. Why the hell was he writing this? What an embarrassment, Doc swore internally. He made a tight face as he set down the pen and read over what he wrote.

    His handwriting was sloppier due to his slightly-drunk state, but that made the impact harder. No one could see him acting like this, let alone the subject of this letter.

    He made a self-deprecating noise as he shoved the pen out of the way to take the paper, ripping it out of the binding.

    In the moment, he had half the mind to destroy this any way he could. Tear it up, crumbling up each shred, and throw it away. Or throw it into the firepit as kindling. Or soak it in water until all of the ink bleeds and the paper is barely holding together.

    He didn’t do any of these. For some reason, the other part of his brain won over- for whatever logic, the unfinished letter was going to be kept. Making his way to his bedroom, Doc kept his grip on the paper. If he didn’t, at any moment, he could destroy it.

    Once reaching his room, he threw open one of the drawers of his work desk. A large, study thing, possibly military, and made a clattering noise at the force. This was the one drawer that had managed to stay empty throughout the decades Doc moved back in.

    The paper is shoved in and the drawer is slammed, shaking and deafening in the silence of night.

    Doc can’t handle this anymore. He needs to lay down, screw getting work done, even if the night was young. Still fully dressed, he did just that, on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

    Even with his best efforts to distract himself in this state, he thought back to Rat.

    David.


End file.
